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3666. Robert Southey to Herbert Hill, 8 April 1821RobertSoutheyThe Collected Letters of Robert Southey, Part FiveElectronic EditionsRomantic Circles, http://www.rc.umd.edu, University of
MarylandCollege Park, MDJanuary 20, 2017http://www.rc.umd.edu/editions/southey_letters/Part_Six/HTML/letterEEd.26.3666.html

I am anxious to hear of you & your household, – of yourself because I am sure you must have
been very much shaken by your dismal confinement at Bristol, & of Alfred, Georgiana & my namesake, because they will hardly have escaped from the measles.
Edward, I heard from Harry, about a week ago, was doing well. It is a favourable time of
year for the disorder (if the season with you be as mild as it is with us) – & xx a good thing to
have passed thro so serious a disease, – from which there is no escaping. – I am looking every day for news of Harry’s family, – & not without a certain degree of
anxiety, to which I am too prone.

You have probably seen his
Doctorship since his friend Sir Wm
KnightonKnighton was an old friend of Henry Herbert Southey; they
had studied medicine together at the University of Edinburgh. Knighton had presented A Vision of
Judgement (1821) to George IV. For the king’s reaction, see Southey to William Knighton, 30 March 1821,
Letter 3661. deputed him to convey to me a very civil message from the King. – What a preposterous price the Longmen have put upon the poem!A Vision of Judgement (1821) was priced at 15 shillings. – just as much again as I should
have thought right. The only objections to the metre which have reached me, are a private one upon some theory
connected with musical terms & notation, which I do not understand,From
Samuel Tillbrook. He published his criticisms as Historical and Critical Remarks upon the Modern
Hexameters, and Upon the Vision of Judgement (1822) and Southey responded in his Poetical
Works, 10 vols (London, 1837–1838), X, pp. [vii]–xxi. & a magazine one as to the difficulty of
finding breath to read it; which is the objection of a blockhead, mistaking <reasoning upon>
length of line, for <as if it were> length of sentence.London Magazine, 3 (April 1821), 428–430:
‘The Vision opens with the following lines, which any “reader of poetry” will find little difficulty in managing –
the only requisite being breath’ (429).

I am printing in a little volume per se that story of Lope de Aguirre.Southey’s The Expedition of Orsua; and the Crimes of Aguirre
(1821), originally intended to be part of the History of Brazil (1810–1819) and first published in
Edinburgh Annual Register, for 1810, 3.2 (1812), i–l.

Peter Martyr of Angheria whose EpistlesPeter Martyr
d’Anghiera (1457–1526), Opus Epistolarum (1670), no. 1902 in the sale catalogue of Southey’s
library. I am now reading, mentions the paper money concerning which you sent me a passage from his friend
& contemporary Ant: Nebrissensis.Antonio de Lebrija (1441–1522),
Rerum a Ferdinando et Elisabeth Hispaniarum Regibus Gestarum Decades II (1545), no. 1925 in the
sale catalogue of Southey’s library. Both Lebrija and d’Angheira mentioned the issue of paper money during the
siege of Alhama de Granada in 1483–1485, possibly the first use of paper money in Europe. I found in his
68th epistle yesterday a passage which have been unknown to the various writers who have
discussed the question of the American Origin of Siphilis, – for it sets that point compleatly at rest. The letter
is dated from Jaen in Nones Aprilis 1488 to the Greek Professor at Salamanca, Arius L whom he calls
Arius Lusitanus,Arias Barbosa (c. 1465/70–1540), Portuguese scholar and
Professor of Greek at the University of Salamanca 1495–1530. & it begins thus. In peculiarem te nostræ
tempestatis morbum, qui appellatione Hispanâ Bubarum dicitur, ab Italis morbus
Gallicus, medicorum Elephantiam alii, alii aliter appellant, incidisse præcipitem,
libero ad me scribis pede. Lugubri autem elog<i>o calamitatem, ærumnasque gemis tuas, articulorum
impedimentum, internodiorum hebetudinem, juncturarum omnium dolores intensos esse proclamas, ulcerum et oris
fœditatem superadditam miserandâ promis eloquentiâ, conquereris, lamentaris, deploras.Peter Martyr d’Anghiera, Opus Epistolarum (Amsterdam, 1670), p. 34. The
passage translates as: ‘You write to me, of your own free will [literally ‘with a free foot’], that you have
fallen headlong into the disease peculiar to our time, which is called by the Spanish appellation ‘bubas’, by the
Italians ‘the French disease’, and which some of the doctors call ‘Elephantia’, and others call by another name.
But in a lugubrious statement you bewail the calamity and your tribulations; you cry out that your knuckles’
impediment, your joints’ dullness and the pains of all your commissures are intense; with an eloquence that
excites pity you tell of the ulcer and the additional foulness of your mouth; you complain, lament and deplore
it.’ – Here then is direct proof that the disease was considered as the peculiar scourge of the age, before
Columbus sailed upon his first voyage.Christopher Columbus (1450/1–1506),
Italian explorer who was commissioned by the Spanish Crown to sail west across the Atlantic in 1492 and who
discovered America rather than Asia. One theory of the origin of syphilis was that it was brought back from
America by Columbus. Southey had previously collected information on the disease for his brother, whose university dissertation agreed with the theory that syphilis had an American origin; see Robert Southey to Henry Herbert Southey, 24 March 1806, The Collected Letters of Robert Southey. Part Three, Letter 1711.

I cannot believe that the Catholic Bill will pass the H of Lords.The Roman Catholic Disability Removal Bill was indeed defeated in the House of Lords on 17 April
1821. If it should, petitions ought to be addressed to the King, to xxxxxxx xxx xxxxxxx by the two Universities,
& by every Dean & Chapter. If it passes Church property will not be worth ten years [MS obscured]. The
danger is from the Dissenters, – they will enter the breach, – the Agriculturists will join with them in a cry
against Tythes, & the first unprincipled Minister will gladly appoint a Committee who may authorize him to do
as Pitt (the worst of all Ministers) did with the Land Tax.William Pitt
(1759–1806; DNB), Prime Minister 1783–1801, 1804–1806, created the Land Tax Redemption Office in
1798, allowing landowners to make their property exempt from future land tax payments if they paid a lump sum,
equal to 15 years’ tax. He also favoured the removal of all civil disabilities from Roman Catholics and resigned
in 1801 when George III (1738–1820; King of Great Britain 1760–1820; DNB) would not agree to the
measure. This Catholic question is a legacy which he left us.

We are all well. Love to my Aunt & the
children. I hope Edward is quite recovered – Let me hear
from you – or from him